RedKeep

Personally, I'd prefer for ABC to disregard any shipper heavy/based answers, regardless of which end of the spectrum or corner of the fandom they come from. I respect if that's the main reason some people are currently still tuning in, it's not like the show has much else to offer at this point, but if we assume that they are serious about actually trying to fix this mess... I'd rather have them understand that they need to improve and invest more than just a bunch of additional ship-pandering scenes.

Those Leanne interviews always make me cringe. She knows her audience and adapts to that, I guess, but all that obsessing about ships and your run of the mill, generic shipper stuff is just so not for me. Both in her interviews and on the show. Kitsis managed to come across like a douche again, no surprise there, and them still clinging to that "a show about hope" nonsense is straight up depressing and sad. The most interesting thing to be pulled from that interview is the bit about Robin Hood not being the Robin we know, but I suspect (at least for me) that's also really more about not everything being 1000% obvious from the start and whatever they actually wrote for him will still end up being disappointing comparing to the various theories fandom's having fun with for now.

I have yet to see anyone comment on it in a positive manner too. Which strikes me as uncompletely unsurprising, but Horowitz and Kitsis have proven time and again how very, very tone-deaf they are when it comes to these things. That and the way they've come to lean much too heavily on shock value as a crutch has put me past the point of feeling for them if they did indeed expect it to be well (or at least somewhat better) received.

And that probably explains a lot about the state the fandom is in too. I imagine a lot of people are still following the show because their favorite actors/characters are technically still part of it, but the writers haven't given them anything enjoyable in ages because Horowitz and Kitsis and the people who actually watch their show are so out of tune on many fronts. Regardless of how one might feel about the character Regina, I don't think it's surprising at all that a lot of Evil Regals aren't over the moon with how this season has been going either, no matter how much screentime Lana Parrilla may be getting. The writers seem to be pretty much the only ones obsessed with the idea that the audience prefers the EQ over Regina and that's why it was necessary to negate two full seasons spent with hammering the ideas of soulmates and second chances at love home with Regina and Robin Hood by killing him off with a never-mentioned-before magic mcguffin so they could get that ridiculous split Queen idea going. Rumple/Rumbelle has been in a similar state for a similar amount of time, with the only difference being that they haven't actually killed Belle off just yet. And Snowing only exist in the background because clearly happy, domestic couples are boring. Seems to me there's a huge amount of frustration going around and the general fandom is long past the point where it makes the experience of keeping up with the show enjoyable even while the quality of the writting has been in a state of steady decline.

I'd like time travel better than yet another AU because I just don't see the point of that. The show has always been repetitive and I know time travel has been done before as well, but there's new ground to be covered there if they don't just largely re-enact scenes from season 1 (or any other previous season) again. Whereas I can't think of any reason why we'd need an AU again since the characters should have learned to appreciate the life they actually have based on that Operation Mongoose finale. And that involved everyone of the main cast back then so no one has the excuse of not having been around for that lesson. ;)

I'm wondering if one of the show's issues so far isn't really that it can't quite decide what it wants to be in terms of where the focus is, which then often tends to make the dynamic between the largely expository flashbacks and real-time action feel... clunky. It's not consistently taking the (fictional) biographical approach as the story of Ginny Baker because then you'd imagine her family and any relationships outside of the world of the sport would be more relevant instead of limited to the maybe-maybe-not recurring guest star role. But at the same time it's also not very consequent in its "world-building" as a show about the inner workings of a pro-baseball team that happens to have the first female pro player in its ranks. Like HeroLeague mentioned above, you kinda get the feeling the team consists of 3-4 players and any hints of on-going stories they've dropped for characters like Amelia or Oscar (who happen to be mains too) seem to be rooted in their love lives rather than their day-to-day actual work in the business. Or they apparently don't get any real on-going stories to begin with, look at how Dan managed to secure his job in a handful of scenes set during a single episode. And yes, of course they are only 4 episodes in and there should still be time for them to pick up speed on some of the levels they've been neglecting so far, but with the way things look now regarding the ratings... I don't know if that's going to make viewers more patient with the show.

Hate to say it, but that's the impression I'm getting as well. I loved the Pilot, the second episode worked quite well for me too... but since then the show has definitely slowly moved away from the story it originally promised to tell a bit more with every new episode and I don't get the feeling that trend's about to come to an end. It's rather disappointing, really, because they have a great cast, the characters they initially introduced us to are likeable and interesting enough and the production setup supports a show that could live up to its initial promise as well, but the quality of the writing is eroding along with the ratings. It already feels to soap-ish for my taste on a whole number of levels, not just with regards to the whole Mike and Ginny dynamic, and I don't have the patience, let alone any real passion, for that. Maybe I'll binge it once the season is over, but right now my enthusiasm for new episodes is already fairly low - at least as far as live watching is concerned - and I find myself already mourning the potential instead of assuming they'll somehow manage to turn this thing around well enough to raise both quality and ratings again.

I really don't think there's any point in trying to determine who (supposedly) suffered most and who's had it worst on this show. But even if one wants to engage in that type of conversation, I'm not sure this is the right thread for it.

That Snow line from the Pilot was always odd, considering the writers later claimed "The Stable Boy" was originally meant to be the second episode (which I find *somewhat* believeable, keeping in mind they did drop the first Daniel-backstory hint in 2.02), but they decided to take a gamble and push it back. But then I guess... maybe there's a weird way of acknowledging that the show could have gotten cancelled before they got to the second half of a full-season order in that and then they at least could have claimed there was never supposed to be more to that Snow/Regina feud than the bit they lifted from the original fairytale? If I were them, I would still have addressed Snow's reasons for making that claim about Regina's motivation later on, but well... Horowitz and Kitsis were never all that great at remembering/addressing stuff that happened more than a handful of episodes ago.

It's also worth keeping in mind that many of those negative adjectives can be used to describe certain parts of/individuals in every other group of fans dedicated to this show as well. To stick with the SQ/CS example: I have my issues with many of the vocal SQ supporters on Twitter especially, but I have also seen a lot of CS fans on that same site that don't behave any better. They just differ with regards to which character/actor/storyline they tend to focus on, not so much in the tone of their posts and the level of noise they're trying to make. It may seem to us, at times, that certain groups are worse than others, but that really depends on one's perspective. I'd guess that if I were to seriously involve myself in the SQ fandom, I'd be able to surround myself with perfect lovely people who discuss the show as a whole in a tone and manner that I'm comfortable with and tune out those who are hysterical and over the top, limited to seeing nothing but their ship in their reactions to it. Same goes for every other group in the overall fandom. It's easy to fall back on generalizations, and I'm gulity of that too, but I can see why they may make it a bit harder for newbies who aren't necessarily sharing the opinions of a majority to come out of lurkerdom on here.

Completely agree. I've been thinking about this after last week's episode and I'm not even sure how much of that is me being paranoid because network tv, over the last few years, has conditioned me to expect shows to a) heavily appeal to a shipper fans side of the audience and b) go for the easiest available pairing and how much of it is this particular show actually planting seeds. But in the end it doesn't matter that much yet because I just know I really, really don't want it. It's a nice show, I quite enjoy watching it, but I'm also not a point where it's absolute must-see tv for me and a romantic Lawson/Ginny pairing would be where I'd draw a line in the sand, I'm afraid. I'm not here for Ginny being paired off romantically with any of her team mates for that matter, but it's not like the show has developed any of them as characters much outside of Lawson and Blip at this point. I don't see how such a pairing could work without hurting Ginny as a character, after everything we've learned about her thus far, and I'd absolutley hate for yet another show to throw away a great platonic m/f dynamic because somehow that's not enough and two characters can't have enjoyable chemistry without being turned from platonic into a romantic pairing.

I imagine the whole "untold stories" angle may factor into it as well since that didn't appear to create a lot of buzz either. At the end of the day many of the characters they're introducing with it just aren't as recognizable and marketable as Disney property. And how many fans or general viewers do we know that have been genuinely excited about the Jekyll/Hyde introduction in the season finale, regardless of which one of the established main characters his story has been tied to? I know I've personally seen more talk about Sam Witwer being cast to play one of them than about the characters themselves. And while I don't necessarily doubt that (at least parts of the) general audience like(s) the Evil Queen, her fantastic costumes, the scene chewing, etc., etc... characters like that always work better in limited doses. Plus, I do think the writers severly miscalculated how unpopular the way they brought her return about would be. Outlaw Queen may not have had the loudest online fandom, but the backlash over Robin Hood's death as a very clunky setup for the Regina/EQ split in the s5 finale went far beyond those who considered themselves fans and shippers. And there's a reason why they were so quick to try and fix that mess as well as they could without losing face by actually reverting his death, I imagine.

I think at least some of that over the top complaining or pseudo social justice warrior/feminist attitude is ultimately also rooted in something I can relate to at least a bit (apart from the obvious shipping aspect that heavily plays into it as well, mind you). This show started out making a lot of promises about being progressive and telling fairytales for a modern audience and in the end, past season 1, that too turned out to be mostly empty phrases. There's a lot of wasted potential on that level of the show as well. Turns out Horowitz and Kitsis' understanding of writing strong female characters, for example, never really went beyond that image they kept coming back to during the early days of the show - "look, our Snow White is wielding a sword!" Add to that how the show is basically only about ships/pleasing shippers now or consider their ridiculously sad writing for minority characters and children (not just baby Neal and baby Robin, they obviously have no clue what to do with Henry most of the time either) and I get where some of the disappointment may come from. However, the writing's been on the wall for a long time now and anyone who was/is honestly still hoping for these writers to make some bold(er) storytelling choices for any of their characters is definitely setting themselves up for disappointment again and again.

I think that's part of what makes this pairing less and less interesting to me, though. I don't necessarily need full-blown, all season long drama, but Emma's complete lack of reaction of these things just sucks so much potential out of the dynamic and makes me wonder what the point is of giving Hook these connections to other character's backstories in the first place. And yes, obviously OUAT has a long history of making the Charmings get over other characters' misdeeds way too quickly even for tv standards, but I do think in this case it tends to be even more rushed. Because while the Charmings and Rumple or the Charmings and Regina at least have a 5 seasons worth of a flashbacks and present tense episodes to look back and there's at least a general sense of actual conflict being acknowledged, Hook's centrics almost seem even more pointless to me since you know whatever potential source of conflict they'll introduce won't be dealt with properly. Instead it's limited to one episode and Emma likely won't even be the one to care one way or another. It's all part of their general problem with writing love interests well, look at Belle and Robin, but while those two barely get/got any decent screentime to begin with that's not an issue with Hook. They just manage to make sure his screentime and his centrics just feels like a formulaic, shallow waste of potential to me, shrug.

Hollywood Reporter article on the convention circuit: Stars Getting Rich Off Fan Conventions: How to Take Home "Garbage Bags Full of $20s" (very briefly mentions OUAT too)

From what I remember, Maguire told fans at cons over the summer that he'd only ever consider coming back if he's getting a real story that he gets to talk through with the writers in advance and it's not just empty promises that lead to him standing around in the background again so it makes sense in a way. I still don't think they should have killed him off and could have just dropped him to recurring again. They could and maybe even should do that with quite a few characters, actually. Make sure you really do have a story to tell with their characters when you bring them in again. In this case of course the backlash must have helped too. Not only as far as ABC and the writers are concerned, but I could imagine the actor doing this at least partially to give his fans/OQ fans some closure too. And the way that article reads it really appears to be about that more than anything. Fixing that terrible, terrible ending they wrote for him last year.

One thing that still baffles me, to a certain degree, is how Horowitz and Kitsis got away with running this show, which is shooting in Vancouver, from Los Angeles on a day to day basis. Whether they'd be open to discussion with/concerns voiced by the actors on set is another question. But there's no chance whatsoever for the cast to actually try to engage in any real dialogue about what works or doesn't work while they're transporting scripts into actual episodes because the writers are in their LA offices while the show's being filmed. I don't remember the details of where it was said and by whom.... But I seem to have a memory of at least one original castmember commenting on how they're asked to stick precisely to the lines as they appear in the scripts and the best they can do is offer up different interpretations of how they're being said, allowing the writers to then pick whatever take's closest to what they had in mind in the editing room. Which seems like a fairly complicated process that could easily be avoided. But yeah, wouldn't be surprised if the actors gave up on that by now too and they simply don't put that much thought into it anymore.

We all tend to be more forgiving or more willing to see certain layers of complexity in the motivation and development of characters we like or at least care about, much in the same vein we're more likely to pick up or focus on the flaws of characters we genuinely don't like for whatever reason. Personally, I don't either love or hate both Hook and Regina, but that definitely seems to be a minority opinion since the fandom does give you the impression that you have to pick a side and if you like one of them you automatically have to dislike the other. It's fairly hard for me to relate to, but I've also been in online fandoms long enough to know that it's a fairly common dynamic, especially once shipping interests come to play a major part in how a show is viewed and discussed. And this show is relaying very heavily on that by now, for some characters more than for others.

I like the hair as well, but I must be the only one who's really not feeling that outfit. I guess it's nice in that it's a change from what they usually pick for Emma and I like many of the elements seperately, like the dress, and the hoodie/coat ensemble, the boots are fantastic too, but the combination of all of them into one outfit looks rather... wild to me and almost more like the type of costume they'd put together for Belle - minus the hoodie, maybe. Aladdin, like Jasmine, seems to have adapted to the Storybrooke/modern day style of clothing rather quickly. I approve of that.

And not exactly something that makes me excited for the new season. Also, no one on this show wins a parent of the year award so the reasonable options for a better arrangement are limited from the start and I get that Kitsis and Horowitz consider that one flashback episode with the young Mills sisters Zelena's redemption, but I just can't wrap my mind around the fact that she's apparently honestly living with and raising that baby now. I don't think I will ever get past the giant mess that was Rebecca Mader's comeback story and I have a sneaking suspicion Zelena's gonna seriously get on my nerves this season, thanks to the writing.

It's a tricky situation, though, and I'm not sure there is one indisputably correct way of going about it. Especially in a day and age where social media/the internet has helped in making fandoms in general feel incredibly entitled and in creating this illusion of knowing more about those involved with our favorite tv shows that sometimes makes it even easier for fans to put people on pedestals or villainize them, depending on their POV. (I will say that the Morrison/O'Donoghue vs. Parrilla/Maguire discussion on this page weirded me out a bit, too. Both pairs appear to me like they get along well and developed a friendship during their time working together, but personally I wouldn't feel like I'm in a position to judge who's closer to whom and whose friendship is deeper or more genuine based on what little I may see of them respectively during their moments of public interaction.) I mean, I have my issues with the vocal online SQ fanbase and the way those involved with the show have dealt with them, but I do understand the desire not to paint everyone who likes the SQ idea with the same brush and I understand wanting to acknowledge them as part of one's fanbase as well. In the case of OUAT, there have definitely been cases of baiting and that's on those who - intentionally or not - did reach out in such a questionable manner. But I believe there have also been examples of fans reading more into mere acknowledgement, either because they desperately want to believe a member of the cast/crew is on their side or because they'd rather have cast/crew reject certain ideas and the fans that come with them as a whole. Conventions kind of add to the idea of being entitled to something as well, I feel, because fans and cast alike attend them with the knowledge in mind that a lot of money has been spent on tickets and extras. Hence, a certain percentage of fans may feel entitled to getting exactly what they want out of their interaction with the cast because they "paid for it" and actors may feel a bit of pressure to "perform" and make sure all fans leave the event with what they came for. In a way that's part of why I completely understand actors who don't like to do cons. I'm afraid I'd be the kind of person who would end up trying to please everyone, even though my head might very well understand that's impossible, too. One thing the smaller, European based cons in particular need to get better at, though, is checking what's okay for fans to bring for actors to sign or pose with during photo-ops and managing expectations. That's why actors have handlers at these events and that's something the staff should enforce as well. Apparently that hasn't happened (effectively enough) at the Paris con repeatedly and from what I understand that's one reason why the boss lady managing most of the OUAT cast in terms of their con appearances was present in Paris this year, stepped in when they started to make the same mistakes again and decided not to work with them again next year too. No idea who's managing O'Donoghue, but I'd imagine he could benefit from having someone like that in his corner next summer, too.

I don't find that article particularly convincing either. As Jack Shaftoe already explained, some of the arguments are weak at best and bordering on nonsensical at worst. In what universe? It's rather telling, to me, to see that the author didn't use any examples to back up this assertion. It doesn't ring true to me, based on my experience as an avid fan of scripted drama television in general, and The 100 provides numerous examples of straight male characters being wrapped in various layers of plot armour while women, regardless of their sexuality, are getting a very different treatment as well. Jasper survived a friggin' spear to the chest in season 1, the same ordeal used to kill Queen Nia this year, and Rothenberg decided that it's his death that would have been "too dark" in season 3, making him change his mind about killing Jasper again. Bob Morley isn't white, but Bellamy's plot armour doesn't even need further explaining - the show speaks for itself on that level - and I really don't get where the idea comes from that Raven of all people is supposedly safer than he is either. Roan magically survived a rather fatal looking gun shot wound because the actor suddenly became more available to The 100 again while the Ontari character was assassinated and mutilated on more than one level. And that list goes on... It didn't only "appear" that way. The show and its writers went out of their way to court and, towards the end, flat out lie to a young, lesbian/bisexual audience. Any article that tries to downplay that very fact, all while Rothenberg's social media posts/interviews and undisputable evidence of some of his writers courting this particular fanbase by invading their spaces on a lesbian message board and sites like tumblr is still out there and easy to find, already loses credit with me. The discussion about the BYG trope isn't limited to The 100. It's moved well beyond that and lots of other, more popular shows have faced the backlash over killing off LGBT characters in a very tropish manner this season. But T100 sparked such an intense first reaction because Rothenberg and those involved readily accepted all the praise they got for their writing of LGBT/minority characters in season 2/early season 3 and promised time and again to avoid stereotypes, claiming they're aware of the harm tropes and (queer) baiting have caused in the past, and assuring vunerable audiences that they should trust them. Shawna Benson even told queer fans they should seek "professional help" if they still didn't trust The 100 and its writers long after 3x07 was in the can. Everyone's entitled to making their own decisions about whether or not they'll continue watching, obviously, but maybe the author should consider that this show's issues don't begin or end with Lexa/LGBT characters either? I'm sure for some viewers this particular aspect is the deal breaker, and that should be respected too, but it's neither the only major point of discussion they caused during s3, nor is the show creatively unaffected by some of the things that went down bts.

Timeless casts Once Upon a Time star as James Bond author Ian Fleming — exclusive: Sean Maguire will live and let die in the series' fourth episode

So apparently the disc design for the BluRay set is put together by pieces created by one of the more distinguished fan artists - who had no idea her work would be used that way. Chances are that's within their rights, considering that part of the source material are their promo pictures of the characters, but geez... at least drop her an email or something? Everyone knows their own graphics design team is incapable of putting anything decent together and most fans would probably be happy to have their work featured for any official merchandise/promotion material, but it should be common courtesy to at least acknowledge you're using someone else's work...

This. Far be it from me to defend him, but I don't get why he should have to confirm on Twitter again what the show itself has been very clear about already. Granted, I don't get why he insists on being "snarky" instead of ignoring such tweets to begin with either.